Pride Month 2025: An Interview with Azzurra Nox

Pride Month 2025: An Interview with Azzurra Nox

  What is your novel about? I actually have two novels out right now. The first one is Into the Dread Unknown, the fifth book in my Women in Horror series, and the second is Panico! a historical poetry collection that borders on the macabre. Into the Dread Unknown is an exploration of Gothic literature through sharp, feminist lenses. Some of the authors featured are familiar voices I’ve had the pleasure of including in past anthologies, while others are new additions to the Women in Horror series. I’m especially thrilled to have two Bram Stoker Award-nominated authors in this latest…
Final Frame Short Horror Film Competition 2025 Finalists Announced!

Final Frame Short Horror Film Competition 2025 Finalists Announced!

  We are excited to finally announce the Final Frame Short Horror Film Competition 2025 Finalists! The winner will be announced next week at the 2025 StokerCon convention.     Vote for Wyrm Director: Benjamin Percy Writer: Benjamin Percy UNITED STATES/2025/5:00 A political attack ad for a small-town mayoral race descends into horror.   Izzy Director: Yfke van Berckelaer Writer: Yfke van Berckelaer NETHERLANDS/2024/9:18 Izzy is constantly stuck in the same: mocked, dismissed, ignored, forgotten. How can she get out of it?   Cruelty Director: Sam Das Writer: Sam Das UNITED STATES/2024/9:18 A young trans woman is chased into a…
HWA Scholarship Applications Now Open!

HWA Scholarship Applications Now Open!

  The  Horror Writers Association is pleased to announce that the Scholarship Committee will be reviewing applications for the following scholarships and grants: the Mary W. Shelley, HWA and Poetry Scholarships. Applications will be available via the HWA submittable and reviewed by a sub-committee of the HWA Scholarship Committee. Additional funding for the HWA Scholarship Program has been generously provided by the Authors Coalition and the Aeroflex Foundation. Membership is not required to apply for any HWA scholarship.  Each Scholarship is worth $2500, except for the Poetry Scholarship ($1250), and may be spent on approved writing education over the two years…
Annual StokerCon Diversity Raffle Prizes Announced

Annual StokerCon Diversity Raffle Prizes Announced

Annual StokerCon Diversity Raffle The Annual StokerCon Diversity Grant Raffle is here! Over twenty books, unique collectables, and other treasured items for lovers of horror, dark fantasy, and the weird will be raffled to benefit the Horror Writers Association Diversity Grant Program. The HWA Diversity Grants have supported over 10 individuals over the last three years giving, $6,000.00 in need to marginalized authors. Raffle winners will be announced at the beginning of the Bram Stoker Awards Cocktail Reception on Saturday, June 14th 6 pm.  Presale tickets for the raffle are available on the Eventbrite page and will be available to purchase…

The Horror Writers Association Announces Horror University 2025

  The HWA is pleased to announce this year's course lineup for StokerCon 2025. Course Pricing: $55 per course (to register see Eventbrite for details). Michael Arnzen: The Uncanny and the Abject This two-hour online workshop will involve short writing activities that will allow you to explore and practice the different techniques writers summon when triggering revulsion or conjuring dread. Amityville-born horror writer Michael Arnzen holds four Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award for his often funny, always disturbing fiction and poetry. In addition to his creative books -- like the novel, Grave Markings, or the short story collection, Proverbs for Monsters--he's…

HWA Scholarship from Hell Recipient Announced

  The Scholarship from Hell is the only scholarship offered by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) that puts the recipient right into the intensive, hands-on workshop environment of Horror University, which takes place during StokerCon®. The StokerCon®2025 Committee Chairs read numerous submissions and this year's recipient is S.E. Clark! S.E. Clark is a writer, artist, and college professor from Boston, MA, who explores the tension between the mundane and the macabre in her prose and art. Her short stories have appeared in publications such as Weird Horror and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and more of her work may be found at www.aprilarium.com.  When not writing, she…

2025 HWA Specialty Award Winners Announced

  The Horror Writers Association announces its 2025 Specialty Award Recipients! These awards will be presented during the Bram Stoker Awards Ceremony in Stamford, Connecticut this June.   Specialty Press Award The recipient of the Specialty Press Award is Mocha Memoirs Press. The HWA Specialty Press Award is presented periodically to a specialty publisher whose work has substantially contributed to the horror genre, whose publications display general excellence, and whose dealings with authors have been fair and exemplary. The award was instituted in 1997, largely due to the efforts of long-time HWA member and specialty press aficionado, Peter Crowther. Congratulations,…

The Horror Writers Association Announces Lifetime Achievement Award Winners

Columbus, OH – The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is pleased to announce the recipients of its Lifetime Achievement Award. These awards will be presented on June 14, 2025, during the Bram Stoker Awards® Presentation at StokerCon®2025 in Stamford, CT. The recipients of the HWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award for 2025 are: Del and Sue Howison, Dame Susan Hill, and David Cronenberg.   Del Howison is an author, journalist, SAG actor including a cameo in the upcoming horror film Big Baby produced by Cher and directed by Spider One. He is a Bram Stoker Award-winning editor of the anthology Dark Delicacies: Original…

NUTS & BOLTS: Lisa Morton Discusses Dennis Etchison

Lisa Morton describes Dennis Etchison’s work as a “brain bombshell” that changed her idea of what horror fiction could do. When she was just starting out, Etchison had a major influence on both her art and her career. In this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts, Lisa discusses Etchison’s writing technique, his influence on her own work, and what writers today can learn from the late horror legend.

Nuts & Bolts: Interview With John Harrison, Netflix Series Creator, Author of Residue: Paramentals Rising

Early in his career, writer and director John Harrison picked up techniques about telling a horror story from collaborating with George Romero. He’s spent decades refining those techniques as a screenwriter, director, and novelist – most recently in a new novel that released on the 11th of this month, Residue: Paramentals Rising, based on the Netflix series he created. In this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts, John shares his thoughts about telling a horror story and storytelling in general. He also gives advice about releasing a book, and getting into TV writing.

Black Heritage in Horror Month: An Interview with Marc L. Abbott

What inspired you to start writing?

This is always a difficult question to answer because I have always loved writing. My imagination was always running wild and growing up, rather than paying attention to lessons in class, I was writing stories in the middle of my notebooks. I used to look forward to doing creative writing with spelling words in elementary school. But my inspiration for starting to take writing seriously was in high school. I had a teacher, Mr. Dolan, who was always encouraging me to tell my stories. One open school night he told my parents “Your son is a writer and is really good at it. You should help him nurture that talent because he can go far with it.” He was one of those teachers who always believed in what I could do. I had told my parents I wanted to be a writer, and they weren’t a hundred percent behind it as a profession with my father saying that I had to be good at the craft to make it. That was before Mr. Dolan told him this news. And until I heard Mr. Dolan say this, I thought about finding something else to pursue. But he confirmed that small belief I had in myself, and it inspired me to go forward with it.

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2025: An Interview with Jamal Hodge

What inspired you to start writing?

Pain, uncertainty, and hope. Honestly, I was a naive child, filled with joy at the thought of meeting another face. But when homelessness found my family in the South Bronx, I quickly learned that people weren’t always safe. Being exposed to ‘American history’ in school further revealed what it meant to be Black in this country, a trauma, in my view, that demands mental health support, like counseling, in schools. These harsh realities made me dream of a better world. I found that place within the pages of books, the ink of a pen, and the boundless depths of my own imagination.

NUTS & BOLTS: Interview With Kasey and Joe R. Lansdale

Whether they come by way of Oz, Wonderland, or the Brothers Grimm, nightmare-inducing children’s stories are the gateway for many nascent fans into the strange, terrifying, and delightful genre of horror fiction. Joe R. Lansdale took a crack at children’s horror fiction with the Ray Bradbury-influenced Something Lumber This Way Comes, which is being rereleased by Pandi Press this month. Kasey Lansdale, executive editor of Pandi Press, provides some useful information about the publishing industry for aspiring authors in this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts.  And Joe gives some tips on writing children’s fiction.

In Dreams: A Tribute To David Lynch

Written by Jonathan Lees “This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top.” -- Barry Gifford Echoing from the smokestacks of an industrial plant, crawling in a severed ear on a freshly cut, watered lawn, or scrawled within the torn diary pages of a troubled teenager, David Lynch sought out the inexplicable side of human nature, not to understand it, but to reinterpret its absurdity and beauty with the same fiery passion of two forbidden lovers escaping down the dividing lines of a dark highway. “I don’t know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the…
HWA Members New Releases – 2025

HWA Members New Releases – 2025

Welcome to the showcase of new releases for 2025! Writers: sign into the members-only area to submit upcoming books using the link on the Promote Yourself page. If your book's release date has passed, it may not be included. If yours isn’t here, it might be because it was submitted too long after the release date. Be sure to submit your book prior to the date it is being released. Select a book cover to learn more about it or the author, and of course to buy a copy! You can view the wall of amazing cover art from past…

Nuts & Bolts: Author Clay McLeod Chapman on Building a Catalogue

The market is crowded, the rules of social media are constantly changing, and the logistics of building a catalogue are more complicated than ever. The good news, according to author Clay McLeod Chapman, is that time-tested strategies such as supporting other authors and finding a unique voice will still get the job done. In this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts, he gives advice for beginning authors about getting their material in print.

Nuts & Bolts: “Rambo” Creator David Morrell Discusses His Mentor

Before he could create Vietnam veteran John J. Rambo in First Blood, thriller and horror author David Morrell had to find that pesky “ferret.” That’s how his mentor Philip Klass, aka legendary science fiction author William Tenn, used to describe it. Professor Klass, who’d taken David under his wing at Penn State University, used to say that if you’re a writer, a dominant emotion fuels your craft. No exceptions. It could be anger or joy. Sorrow or lust. Like it or not, you’re stuck with it because it’s an integral part of you. The professor compared it to a ferret rooting around in your psyche. Elusive. Ravenous. And worst of all, unwilling to be found.

Nuts & Bolts: The Value of Creative Writing Courses With Author Ray Cluley

Taking a creative writing course is a concept that some of Ray Cluley’s fellow authors seem to find puzzling. Even objectionable. If you’re calling yourself a writer, shouldn’t you already know how to write? Since it’s such a personal endeavor, how can it even be taught?

In this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts, Ray discusses the full range of benefits from a creative writing course, and how even seasoned professionals can use one to hone their craft.

Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Iona Wayland

What inspired you to start writing?

To be honest, it was a group of alley cats. Even before I could write, I’d literally scribble and loopity-loop in a composition notebook about the cat families I saw outside from my window. The way I portrayed their stray lives was often like an anthropomorphized telenovela and I remember being frustrated when no one could read what I’d written.

Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Ericca Chavez

What inspired you to start writing?

I was inspired to start writing because of the ghost stories I would hear as a kid, in particular, La Llorona; they sparked my imagination. I made up worlds in my mind and found myself lost in them—still am most days. Then one day, I decided to bring these worlds to life by actually putting them down on paper.